


Tales from the Back Room: The Palisson Incident

by XVettes (JordStarrr)



Category: XV de France
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-16
Updated: 2013-02-16
Packaged: 2017-11-29 12:31:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/686983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JordStarrr/pseuds/XVettes





	Tales from the Back Room: The Palisson Incident

Palisson. Palisson is...one of my favourites. Strictly speaking, it's not professional to have favourites, but I doubt I'm the only one. The fact that I genuinely enjoy my work with some clients does earn them a few privileges, though I always like to swear them to secrecy afterwards. It makes me laugh to let them think they have a hold on me. I've always found it a joy to pencil his name into my diary - lucky for both of us that he has always needed regular discipline. After a while he began to develop an attachment; they often do. It's normal, I suppose. Inevitable maybe, when you consider the practice of showing your weakest side and your innermost desires to a perfect stranger. This attachment is never reciprocal. That's for the best, isn't it? There are lines; lines that shouldn't be crossed _by_ anyone, _for_ anyone. What I provide is a service. 

 

Oh, but it's so much more than that, isn't it? 

 

I wasn't expecting to see him in my day job. I do have one, though it's less intensive, shall we say - my nocturnal work is well remunerated but it also pays to have something to satisfy the taxman when the time comes. Being a qualified beauty therapist was what first led me to Paris, would you believe. I've never been one blinded by romance to the darker side of life, or sexuality. I'd worked out fairly young that I fell into the dominant side of the d+s equation, and I found having hot wax at my disposal and a client in my hands far more enjoyable than I suspect the average beautician does. 

 

He told me he needed his chest doing and downstairs "tidying up" - something about a calendar. I pretended I didn't know what he was talking about, while simultaneously imagining what it would be like trying to direct him at the shoot. I made a mental note to look that one up later in the year. But I told him I'd be happy to oblige, particularly since I knew I could rely on him to be enjoying the attention. When I asked him to lie down on the table, he blurted out a meek little, "Oui, madame," and blushed when he realised what he'd done. 

 

"Don't worry, 'Lexis," I purred (it helps to develop a purr in my lines of work), placing a hand over his breastbone. "I'll never get tired of that sound. Shirt off." 

He looked up at me and smiled. "Oui, madame." 

I leant over him, pressing my fingers into his skin. "Don't forget that I'm about to pour hot wax over you, 'Lexi. My hand could very easily...slip, if I feel you're getting too boisterous." 

 

That shut him up.

The evening he came over to my flat for an appointment and ended up staying until the next morning was the evening that things started to get difficult. I was running a high fever, but being a professional, I was trying to carry on as if nothing at all were wrong. I welcomed him inside, crop in hand as per usual - he does need a deterrent - but as soon as he'd given me the envelope, I tottered over to the cabinet where I keep my money overnight and everything started to melt and get very dark in front of my eyes. The next thing I knew, I was on the floor with a blinding headache and everything was blurry. 

 

When I came round properly, he was kneeling over me, one hand pressed to my forehead. He looked scared that he'd been caught touching me; as if I were still going to beat the living daylights out of him. 

  
"I'm sorry, madame," he said quietly. "You fainted. You feel very warm. Are you ill?"  
I mumbled something about fever and being professional and not letting him off because he'd paid me already. He moved the crop from where it had fallen by my side, and said,  
"You need to go to bed, madame. I can't leave you alone like this. You don't look well at all. Please will you let me help you into bed?" 

  
I conceded that I did need to rest, and tried to get up; he eased me back down until I was horizontal. Rugby, it turns out, makes you err on the side of caution following a spell of unconsciousness. Those few minutes are at best, vague; his battle-hardened hand in mine, his voice; "Ça va aller, madame, je suis là, je suis là..." I felt better, but it felt comforting to have someone with me. When he decided I was fit to stand, I allowed him to put me to bed. He politely closed his eyes as he helped me undress. "It's nothing you've not seen before," I mumbled, but I let him. I let him. 

 

As he rolled the stocking down my leg, I looked down at him; eyes closed, fingertips touching my skin as though it were made of liquid gold. I felt a strange pull of affection for him, then; maybe I just wasn't thinking straight, but he seemed suddenly more like a sweet little boy than a grown man who paid me to beat him up. I reached out to ruffle his hair but he'd turned away, covering his eyes with his hands; I pulled on my slip and collapsed into the sheets. Gingerly, he took my hand and smoothed the damp hair away from my face as I lay, shivering, under the duvet.

 

"Will you let me stay with you, madame?" he asked nervously. "I can look after you until the morning. You shouldn't be on your own when you're this sick." He squeezed my hand to indicate that he was serious.  
Maybe if I'd been in my right mind I'd have done the right thing and said no. But I wasn't in my right mind, I was feverish and exhausted and I let him, nodding weakly at him, eyes closed. He was right; I didn't want to be alone, and I trusted him enough to allow him into my space, so what harm could it do? 

  
He stayed until early the next morning, making me hot drinks, telling me stories from the locker room, reading while I slept fitfully for a couple of hours. When I woke, he was lying on the other side of the bed, dozing himself, my copy of Phèdre spread out by his side. He looked like a little cherub, eyelids fluttering, feet twitching every few seconds. 

  
"Alexis?" I croaked.  
His head jerked up immediately. "Sorry madame." He rubbed at his eyes as if to erase all desire for sleep from them.  
I reached for his hand, curling my long, slender fingers around his.  
"Thank you," I whispered. "Very much."  
He smiled his big, heart-breaking smile and I felt my spirits lift just a little. "You're welcome, madame." 

  
It must have been 4 am, but he didn't sleep. The rest of the night he spent lying close to me, leaning on one elbow and occasionally winding strands of my hair around his fingers. And all the while he still called me 'madame'. 

 

I don't honestly know any more if I imagined this thing or if it really happened, but very early in the morning, just as the first streaks of light were making their way through the curtains, I think...I think, I'm  almost sure...he said something. 

 

"I'll always belong to you, madame." 

 

He'd been chattering away nineteen to the dozen, probably trying to keep himself awake, but suddenly he paused, looking down at me for a long, long moment. I remember his eyes; warm, chocolate brown...and the feel of his hand in my hair. The rest, is...

"I'll always belong to you, madame." 

 

He left me in bed in the morning, saying he had to catch the first train or risk losing some non-essential body parts when he returned to Toulon. As he left, he kissed me, one hand stroking my hair, and despite myself, I reached up to touch his cheek, and something went tight in my chest. And I knew then, that whatever was going on, it was not going to end well. 

 

I felt a sharp jolt of sadness in the pit of my stomach when I heard that he was engaged. 

 


End file.
